Last week was the end of one month and the beginning of another, which means it’s time for yet another manga giveaway at Experiments in Manga. There are still a couple of days left to enter for a chance to winComplex Age, Volume 1 by Yui Sakuma. As can probably be gleaned from my relatively recent review of the first volume, so far I’m really liking the series.

In other news, it sounds like Akimaro Mori’s award-winning collection of short mysteries The Black Cat Takes a Stroll will finally be released by Bento Books this year, perhaps even within the next few months. Fans of Vampire Hunter D will likely be interested in a recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce Vampire Hunter D: Message from Mars, a comic based on Hideyuki Kikuchi’s unpublished short story Message from Cecile. (Anime News Network posted an interview with part of the creative team which has more information.) But the Kickstarter project I’m personally most excited about at the moment is the campaign to support the fourth year of Sparkler Monthly Magazine. I’m not shy about my love of Chromatic Press and Sparkler Monthly (Chromatic Press even has its own tag here at Experiments in Manga) so I really want to see the campaign succeed.

Anime Expo began last week and there were plenty of licensing announcements to come out of the event. Dark Horse has licensedHatsune Miku: Rin-Chan Now!, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Legend of the Piko-Piko Middle School Students, and H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories by Gou Tanabe which should be great. The announcements from Kodansha Comics included an interactive Attack on Titan novel, and four manga for print release: Fire Force, Clockwork Planet, Toppu GP and the one I’m probably most interested in, Ichi F, about a nuclear power plant worker in Fukushima. Seven Seas has picked upMagical Girl Site, Species Domain, Plum Crazy! Tales of A Tiger-Striped Cat, and Dreamin’ Sun which is by Ichigo Takano, so I definitely plan on checking it out. Vertical will be translating the Nisemonogatari light novels. Viz Media will be releasingDragon Ball Super, The Water Dragon’s Bride, and Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt and will be rereleasing Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V, Rurouni Kenshin, and Revolutionary Girl Utena. Yen Press has added one light novel (Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers), five manga (Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, The Isolator, Big Order, Smokin’ Parade, Murciélago) as well as an original graphic novel by Cassandra Jean, Reindeer Boy, which I’m especially looking forward to.

Quick Takes

My Little Monster, Volumes 11-13 by Robico. While the middle part of the series felt like it dragged a bit, overall I would say My Little Monster was a manga that for the most part I enjoyed. I particularly liked the characters and their quirkiness. The story itself was at times tedious to read due to the fact that the narrative often backtracked after any forward progress was made in regards to the plot and so the same ground had to be covered multiple times. The seriousness of some parts of the story (like Haru’s background and family situation) didn’t always seem to mesh well as a whole with the series’ comedy. Robico tended to handle the humor better, and I like My Little Monster best when it’s being ridiculous (I can’t begin to tell you how pleased I was to see Nagoya the chicken at the wedding), but there were still some very touching moments. I also really enjoy Robico’s after-chapter four-panel manga. The series proper actually ends with the twelfth volume while the thirteenth volume collects various side stories and epilogue chapters that focus on the series’ supporting cast. Because the English-language release of series has been so well supported, Kodansha Comics also includes an extra sixty pages of comics and character profiles which were a great deal of fun.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Side: P4, Volumes 1-2 by So Tobita. I still haven’t played the original Persona Q video game, but since I’ve read the Side: P3 manga adaptation I now have a decent sense of its story. Or, at least the beginning of the story; Side: P3 was only two volumes long. I incorrectly assumed that Side: P4 would follow the same pattern, but as far as I can tell the series is still ongoing. Reading Side: P4 almost immediately after reading Side: P3 does cause a fair amount of déjà vu, and understandably so as it’s more or less the same story simply from a different perspective with the characters from the Persona 4 series taking the lead this time instead of those from the Persona 3 series. There are original scenes and content to be found in Side: P4, but the further along the series gets the more similarities are to be found. While I generally liked Side: P3, I’m actually really enjoying Side: P4. This rendition of the story is able to stand on its own fairly well so that even readers who aren’t already familiar with Persona as a whole can follow along more easily. I also find that I generally connect more with the Persona 4 cast more than I do the Persona 3 cast. And as an added bonus, Side: P4 has significantly more homoeroticism, which I do enjoy.

Wrecked Hearts by Mathilde Kitteh and Luca Oliveri. I came across Wrecked Hearts almost entirely by accident but I’m so glad that I did because I loved it. The volume was published by a small press in Sweden and features science fiction stories in English from two creators based in France which are heavily influenced by shoujo manga. Wrecked Hearts opens with the shorter of the two comics, Oliveri’s “The Real Thing,” about a shape-shifting alien living her life as a human girl while her father studies the human race. She develops a crush on a boy in her class and so poses as another boy during a school trip in order to try to get to know him better. The longer comic, “Dark Energy” by Kitteh, is about a celestial goddess who takes human form to experience love only to encounter heartbreak after heartbreak, ultimately deciding to travel through space alone until an android journalist comes to visit her ship. The two comics in Wrecked Hearts are not directly related by characters or plot, but the tone of the stories and some of the themes explored are similar—loneliness, love, romance, gender, sexuality, and identity are all important to the tales being told. Wrecked Hearts is also a beautifully produced book, and both Kitteh and Oliveri’s illustration styles are lovely.

As the winner, Rebecca will be receiving four first volumes of shoujo manga published by Kodansha Comics: LDK, Volume 1 by Ayu Watanabe; Let’s Dance a Waltz, Volume 1 by Natsumi Ando; My Little Monster, Volume 1 by Robico; and Say I Love You, Volume 1 by Kanae Hazuki. Kodansha usually isn’t the first publisher I think of when I think of shoujo, but I’ve really been enjoying some of the shoujo manga that it has licensed. For this giveaway, I asked that participants tell me a little about their favorite Kodansha shoujo manga. As was pointed out by several people, Kodansha also releases quite a few shounen series which have tremendous shoujo crossover appeal. Check out the the giveaway comments for all of the responses!

The end of November is almost here, and you know what that means! It’s time for another manga giveaway at Experiments in Manga. As is tradition for November’s giveaway, in celebration of Thanksgiving in the United States (my favorite holiday) I’m offering up a manga feast. You all will have a chance to win not one, but four volumes of manga this month: LDK, Volume 1 by Ayu Watanabe; Let’s Dance a Waltz, Volume 1 by Natsumi Ando; My Little Monster, Volume 1 by Robico; and Say I Love You, Volume 1 by Kanae Hazuki–a veritable smorgasbord of shoujo from Kodansha Comics! And, as always, the giveaway is open worldwide.

When I used to think of Kodansha Comics, shoujo manga never really came to mind. However, over the last couple of years, the publisher has made a point to expand its shoujo offerings. As a result, Kodansha has started to develop a nice catalog of shoujo manga, including titles that feature science fiction, mystery, action, romance, comedy, drama and more. For the most part, I’ve really been enjoying Kodansha’s shoujo series and I like seeing the variety in the manga.

So, you may be wondering, how can you win a Kodansha Shoujo Smorgasbord?

1) In the comments below, tell me a little bit about your favorite shoujo manga released by Kodansha Comics. (If you don’t have one yet, simply mention that.)
2) If you’re on Twitter, you can earn a bonus entry by tweeting, or retweeting, about the contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me).

And there you have it! Each person can earn up to two entries for this giveaway and has one week to submit comments. If you have trouble leaving comments, or if you would prefer, entries can also be emailed to me at phoenixterran(at)gmail(dot)com. I will then post the comments here in your name. The giveaway winner will be randomly selected and announced on December 2, 2015. Good luck to you all!

VERY IMPORTANT: Include some way that I can contact you. This can be an e-mail address in the comment form, a link to your website, Twitter username, or whatever. If I can’t figure out how to get a hold of you and you win, I’ll just draw another name.

Keeping this short and sweet because boy do I have a lot of stuff going on right now! Last week at Experiments in manga the Barakamon manga giveaway winner was announced. The post also includes a list of manga with prominent countryside settings for anyone interested in exploring some of what has been published in English. As for the first in-depth manga review of the month, I took a look at Junji Ito’s Cat Dairy: Yon & Mu which I found to be highly entertaining. I expected that I would at least like the manga, but I absolutely loved its weird mix of not-exactly-horror and comedy.

My Little Monster, Volume 10 by Robico. The last few volumes of My Little Monster have been getting progressively more serious to the point where, overall, the tenth seems to hardly have any humor at all. This is quite a change from the beginning of the series where the manga’s balance leaned more towards comedy and the more humorous aspects of the interactions between its oddball characters. I did really like this volume, though. Basically, Haru’s past and present are now colliding and the results are appropriately dramatic as everyone involved deals with the fallout. There are hurt and conflicted feelings, and many complications and frustrations. For one, Haru’s family circumstances are more fully explained, showing how the intense antagonism between him and his brother came about and just how awful a person their father is. A significant portion of My Little Monster, Volume 10 actually explores the story through the perspective of Haru’s brother Yuzan, which I was glad to see. He’s still not particularly pleasant, but being able to better understand his and Haru’s situation makes him less of an enigma and a much more sympathetic and interesting character.

Suikoden III: The Successor of Fate, Volumes 6-11 by Aki Shimizu. I still haven’t played any of the Suikoden games, although based solely on the manga adaptation of the third, it’s likely a to be franchise that I would enjoy. I liked the first five volumes of Shimizu’s Suikoden III, but the final six cemented my appreciation for the manga–it’s a solid epic fantasy series with both magic and military might. Although it is a video game adaptation and in a few places the RPG mechanics can be seen if one is looking for them, the manga stands very well on its own and doesn’t really feel too game-like. The second half of the series more fully delves into the antagonist’s backstory which was needed as his motivations are much more complicated than would initially appear. One of the things I like the most about the Suikoden III manga is that nothing is strictly good or evil, the characters and their actions are more nuanced than that. Under the weight of war and inherited responsibilities they must all try to hold onto their ideals while at the same time making compromises in order to protect what and who they love. Enemies become allies and in some cases even friends, but it is a hard journey.

Taimashin: The Red Spider Exorcist, Volume 2 written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and illustrated by Shin Yong-Gwan. Although all six volumes of Taimashin have been translated into English, only the first two were released in print; the other four volumes are only available digitally. It’s been a long while since I’ve read the first volume in the series, but I do distinctly recall liking it, or at being enthralled by Akamushi Fujiwara, the titular Red Spider Exorcist who may be a human, a demon, or something else entirely. Reading the second volume, Akamushi still fascinates me and is probably my favorite part of the manga. For the most part I would classify Taimashin as a horror manga although, as I’ve come to expect from Kikuchi’s works, it also has distinct elements of science fiction and fantasy. While it doesn’t always make a lot of sense, the manga can be both thrilling and creepy. This is actually something else that I associate with Kikuchi–he writes these bizarrely engaging stories with ominous atmospheres that end up being all over the place. Taimashin‘s artwork fits the story and characters particularly well, ranging from Akamushi’s otherworldly beauty to scenes that are frankly grotesque.

Last week Experiments in Manga reached its fifth anniversary, so I wrote a somewhat lengthy post about what I’ve been up to online and offline over the last year. Thank you again to everyone who has shown support and encouragement for Experiments in Manga over the years. Apparently, people actually want to see another five years, so I guess I better get to work on that. With that in mind, have two more in-depth reviews! Last week I took a look at Rikao Yanagita’s surprisingly entertaining The Science of Attack on Titan, one of the two non-manga books that Kodansha Comics has released so far. (The other one was related to Attack on Titan, as well.) I also reviewed Baku Yumemakura and Jiro Taniguchi’s The Summit of the Gods, Volume 5, which is the final volume in one of my favorite series. The writing and artwork in The Summit of the Gods is superb; I’m so glad that the entire manga is now available in English.

A few other things caught my eye online last week. Mangabrog has translated an article from 2013 that provides a tour through Inio Asano’s workspace. More information has been revealed about Kodansha’s digital efforts and the publisher is aiming high: digital editions of two thousand volumes translated into English by the end of 2017. Occasionally manga makes its way to NPR (which I believe is how I actually first learned about and became interested in Death Note). Most recently, one of NPR’s contributors featured a few great romantic manga: Kaoru Mori’s Emma, Ichigo Takano’s Orange, and Ai Yazawa’s Nana. I haven’t had a chance to read Orange yet, but considering the quality of Emma and Nana, I’m now looking forward to Seven Sea’s upcoming print release of the series even more. The game of manga tag continues to make it rounds, this time Narrative Investigations’ Helen tackles the questions.

Quick Takes

Castle Mango, Volume 2 written by Narise Konohara and illustrated by Muku Ogura. While I liked the first volume of Castle Mango, I really enjoyed the second and final volume of the series. Castle Mango is an unusual boys’ love manga; most of it doesn’t have anything to do with romance. The close relationship between Yorozu and Togame begins with a terribly manipulative lie, but it eventually develops into something real for both of them. In the first volume, the two men frequently seemed to have an almost father-son sort of vibe, but by the end of the series I was slightly more convinced by their intimacy as boyfriends. It does take a little while to get there though; they spend a large portion of the second volume apart. Togame is trying to give Yorozu space, feeling that it’s in the younger man’s best interest, but he doesn’t really go about it in the best way. Unfortunately, this is happening at the same time that Yorozu is struggling to take care of his little brother and his family’s business (a love hotel) when his mother is hospitalized. Yorozu is in the process of shedding the last of his immaturity and makes some terrible decisions in the process. In many ways, Castle Mango is more about Yorozu’s growth as a person than anything else.

Give to the Heart, Volumes 1-4 by Wann. After a long period of silence, about a year ago Netcomics quietly began publishing books in print again. Give to the Heart was the first manhwa to be released after the publisher’s hiatus. I was interested in reading the series because I wanted to support Netcomics, but also because it was created by Wann. (I had previously read and thoroughly enjoyed Wann’s collection of short manhwa 9 Faces of Love.) At first Give to the Heart seemed like it was going to largely be fantasy fiction, but as the series progresses, more and more science fictional elements are introduced. The ongoing story is about Sooyi, a young woman who became the wife of Ganok, the demon king who controls all water, but who is now attempting to escape him. Not only that, she is trying to find a way to kill him as well, or at least cause him as much pain as possible even if that means sacrificing her own life in the process. Though it is implied that Sooyi and Ganok were at one point content and happy as a pair, their current relationship obviously has its problems. Actually, considering the extreme imbalance of power between them—Ganok being a cruel god and Sooyi being a human with a strong will—that’s been true from the very beginning.

My Little Monster, Volume 9 by Robico. So, Haru and Shizuku are now officially a couple, although not much has actually changed in their relationship. But now that that has been settled, the other romantically interested parties are more or less able to move on with their lives. As a result, the plot of My Little Monster is now able to move along as well. This particular volume includes summer vacations and festivals, which is fairly standard for a high school romance, but Haru’s family drama is starting to come to the forefront of the story again. Underneath the humor of My Little Monster there seems to have been something ominous lurking waiting to be revealed. Haru’s brother Yuzan isn’t as terrifying as he once was, but there is definitely something going on between him and Haru and with Haru’s reluctance to interact with the rest of his family. Haru is trying to keep Shizuku from finding out the details, though eventually he’s really going to need to come clean with her and explain his situation. But, while Shizuku is still in the dark, at least readers get to learn a bit more. I continue to enjoy My Little Monster, especially the series’ quirky characters, and I’m happy to see the manga continue to gain some forward momentum.